No Big Goodbye
by Toni Harrison
Summary: The end of an era?


Author: Toni Harrison Email address: tonibuffs@aol.com Title: No big goodbye  
  
Character: Sam Category: Drama/Angst Rating: G with a bit of PG for language.  
  
Authors notes: Well this here little fic is my response to the other day's news. I wrote it in the space of 30 minutes so that probably explains it if it's not too good just had to get it off my chest! ..As if I needed any more excuse to be hacked off with life...Thanks a lot NBC! :( Feedback would be gratefully received, be it positive or not so...No flaming though please. Thanks.  
  
***********  
  
So, here I am in a place I knew I'd end up in eventually celebrating....no, that's not right wallowing, yeah I like the word wallowing, in my success, or perhaps notoriety should be the word to be tossed around.  
  
Oh what do I care, here I am in a Georgetown bar waiting for the people who haved played such a part in my life, all the highs, the lows, the election wins and the screwing me with my pants on bit.  
  
Mom always brought me up to be the good idealistic type and Dad always said it would prove to be my downfall, well guess what Mom this is where my idealism has led me to and Dad, congratulations you're right again.  
  
Two weeks ago I had this job that I loved, no wait that's wrong, more like 18 months ago I had a job and a life I loved, some days were good, some days were bad, very bad but at the heart of it all I felt blessed. I was doing something I believed in, something I could go to bed at night thinking I'd done some good in the world about, then Dad told me about her and those 28 years of lies and then the other man who I'd invested just as much of my time, heart and soul into kicked our entire country in the teeth when he admitted he'd lied to the nation and to us, the poor dumb assholes who'd thrown away their lives, careers and reputations on account of this one person we believed was different from all the rest.  
  
So, yup there began the turning point at least for me, sure I still worked my butt off non stop for the last 18 months but everything I looked at, every thing I'd felt passionate about before just seemed shaded with a touch of doubt, complication and something I'd never felt before, depression. Yeah, I was still proud to work at the White House, still proud to be part of the Senior Staff but therein lay the beginning of the problems, the inner sanctum seemed to have developed an inner-inner sanctum and I wasn't part of it.  
  
Sure, you get bad, low key jobs at times but then you expect something big to come along, you also expect support from your closest colleagues at times when you feel like there's actually no room for trust and friendship in this whole world of ours. When you get neither of these, you begin to question things.  
  
All my feelings of discontent were pretty soon swept under the rug...that's another thing Mom taught me, don't bear grudges, don't sulk and most of all, each day is a new day. And right, you guess again Dad mocked that too.  
  
Jeez, I hate it when he's right. This time I suspect he hates that too.  
  
So, time moved on, we overcame yet more difficulties, we won the election and everything seemed to be getting right again, The President was praising me like never before, Toby was Toby and that felt good, he'd even taken to bouncing the ball against the wall again, Josh was still Josh, that insufferable mix of close friend when he needs your advice for helping out over some spat with Amy to the guy who just 18 months ago would've backed you up in an argument, now the guy who you end up coming within one inch of hitting in the Oval Office and the reason you're sat in this bar in Georgetown.  
  
Actually, that's not fair Josh more than anyone had tried to talk me out of this, saying he was just as much in the wrong and although I actually almost wanted to take that down in evidence and frame the fact that Joshua Lyman had admitted he may actually be in the wrong, that's not all the reason why.  
  
I lost control and I know I'd do it again. I can't face working in a place where lying is common place, where the people we talk a good game to and then when things go wrong we turn our back on, where the people I work with don't trust me to go into meetings about something that could have been the biggest national disaster and caused hundreds of thousands of men and their families livelihoods to be destroyed and I'm supposed to be one of the President's right hand men and the voice of the president, I can't work in a place where the guy who brought me on this road and told me 'This guy's different' then questions my speech for the President on an issue which when all was said and done was a minor one and a joke that people laughed at but one person took as being 'unsuitable and innappropriate' and in turn questions my role within this White House.  
  
Maybe I was foolhardy, maybe I was acting on impulse, maybe I should just go back in there and ask the President to rip up the letter, oh and yeah maybe I should run up and down Pennsylvania avenue in a turnip truck wearing a rah rah skirt singing 'I am a pirate King'.  
  
I won't change my mind though as that's one thing that Mom did teach me correctly and not even my Dad corrects her this time. Your first instinct is the right instinct.  
  
Maybe that's why I'm actually not feeling scared, maybe that's why I'm actually looking forward to waking up tomorrow and I'm not even worried about the guys who've been congregating on my doorstep since the day CJ not very successfully sidestepped the question 'Are the rumours true CJ, has Sam Seaborn quit?'. Maybe that's why I'm sat here in this Georgetown bar feeling relief for the first time in almost 6 years.  
  
The looks on their faces in the Oval Office almost seemed envious. CJ seemed quieter than normal, Toby touching the side of his beard and constantly moving his arms about and Josh not looking me in the eyes again for the tenth consecutive day. The president despite his many flaws took me to one side, shook my hand and handed me a dog-eared first edition of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and told me to remember the chess game. Leo's smiled and wished me all the best and then I made my way to the Bullpen.  
  
I've never been one for big goodbyes which is precisely why CJ made sure that everyone knew not to make a fuss as I picked up my final boxes of belongings, handed in my key and pass at Security and left the White House for the final time.  
  
And now as I sit here and they're all due to start arriving in the next 10 minutes after the final bill is passed or not, and I can't even remember which Bill is being voted for, and go to sip my whisky and notice there's nothing left that's when I realise there's really nothing left for me either in this city.  
  
I really haven't ever been one for long goodbyes or a fuss to be made and besides at these sort of occasions people forget the reason they're there after their first drink of bourbon.  
  
I have no doubt that I will see these people again and soon, after all they do have cable in North Carolina and maybe one day in the not too distant future I'll pick up the phone or email Toby, CJ, Charlie even Josh godammit but for now that's me and this is my life in Washington over with. I have a cab to hail and a plane to catch.  
  
Besides Ainsley always did say that she hated it when people were late. 


End file.
